Evolution of Indian women...

There has always been a trend that Indian wives will be housewives when they get married. Generally man in the family becomes the sole bread winner in the family. If the man has a good job that pays well, there is no reason for his wife to work. But in Singaporean context, the women are well educated and are career minded. In these conditions would they want to cook at home? I mean after a hard day’s work how are they going to find time to buy groceries and cook? This is when the maid comes in. The maid will do the cooking and the grocery shopping.

20 years ago if I were to make a rough gauge only 3 out of 10 Indian women were working. This is mainly because of their upbringing. Their parents taught that women do not need education has they are only going to be housewives. The future prospects of women were very narrow. Then the economy slumped this resulted in many families to have lower income. The solution to this problem was, both husband and wife have to work to support the family. With lack of prior education the women were limited to manual labor, factory jobs. With the pressure to support the family Indian women worked long shifts of work. Some were even working overnight.

What do these parents tell their children? “See with no education mother and father has to work so hard to make ends meet”. Driven by the parent’s advice the children excel in school, and so putting them through University education.

Now 20 years later the children are now the parents. Now they are not driven by their financial burden but their aspirations. Now the reading is 7 out of 10 Indian women are working. Women have evolved .They are not the ones in the kitchen, they are the ones on par with men in the working world.

And in the kitchen our foreign talent has taken over. Indonesian, Filipino or Sri Lankan cuisine? You decide!

*note: The readings I used in this blog were just based on my observation. Don’t “swan” me over it!